The inside leg

Who is this Beau Brummell? I'm taking part in a panel discussion at the V&A on menswear, and Stephen Calloway, a curator at the museum, is saying even non-fashion people have heard of him. Apparently, before Brummell, menswear didn't exist. Nope, doesn't ring any bells.

Next day, I check to see if I'm alone in my ignorance. The first person I ask hadn't heard of him, either. I ask Bill at work, who knows about such things: apparently, there's a statue to Brummell on Jermyn Street. Not my neck of the woods. Turns out he scandalised early 19th-century society with his masculine dapper clothing. He experimented with a fitted, functional shape that's now seen as a predecessor of the modern suit. And so menswear headed down its thin path.

Mythologising an individual makes me want to fall asleep. It's as if you studied womenswear solely through the tedious wardrobe of Sienna Miller. Brummell was a dandy - one of the most depressing words in the English language: so much effort to present a front, no matter how little it has to do with the man beneath.

Clothing should primarily please yourself. I bought a Dries Van Noten snood this week because I love my immediate field of vision being filled by its peachy brown and blue knit squares. You can twist its long loop and end up with something approaching a cape. Dries does men's snoods, but this one has a dirty secret - it came from the womenswear floor.

If you missed last week, I want to know what you're buying. Tell me about the last item of clothing you bought, why, and if you felt the same about it once you got it home (inside_leg@hotmail.co.uk).

About this article

Charlie Porter: The inside leg

This article appeared on p59 of the Weekend section of the Guardian
on Friday 10 June 2005.
It was published on
the Guardian website
at 06.23 EDT on Saturday 11 June 2005.
It was last modified at 12.11 EST on Tuesday 17 February 2015.
It was first published at 06.23 EST on Friday 4 November 2005.